$2 Egg-beater Could Save Lives In Developing Countries

Date:

October 22, 2008

Source:

Royal Society of Chemistry

Summary:

Plastic tubing taped to a handheld egg-beater could save lives in developing countries. The low-cost centrifuge replacement can separate plasma from blood in minutes, which is used in tests to detect lethal infectious diseases responsible for half of all deaths in developing countries.

Share:

Total shares:

FULL STORY

Whitesides' egg-beater centrifuge.

Credit: Image courtesy of Royal Society of Chemistry

Whitesides' egg-beater centrifuge.

Credit: Image courtesy of Royal Society of Chemistry

Plastic tubing taped to a handheld egg-beater could save lives in developing countries, the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Lab on a Chip reports.

The low-cost centrifuge replacement can separate plasma from blood in minutes, which is used in tests to detect lethal infectious diseases responsible for half of all deaths in developing countries.

George Whitesides and colleagues at Harvard University, US, say the plasma obtained is easily good enough to use in tests to detect diseases such as Hepatitis B and cysticercosis.

"The object was to separate serum [plasma] from blood using readily-obtained materials in a resource-constrained environment," explains Whitesides.

The equipment can be bought from shops for around two dollars. It needs no special training to use, no electricity or maintenance, and can be sterilised with boiling water and reused.

The user can even prepare several samples at once - just by taping more lengths of tubing to the beater.

Contrast this with the bulky, sensitive commercial centrifuges, costing thousands of dollars and requiring extensive operation training, and it's easy to see how this development could save lives.

"This technique is simple and works remarkably well," says Doug Weibel, an expert in microbiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US. "This technique complements several other 'simple solutions' that the Whitesides group has developed to tackle point-of-care diagnostics in resource-poor settings."

Aug. 1, 2015  After debuting the world's first solar air battery last fall, researchers have now reached a new milestone. They report that their patent-pending design -- which combines a ... read more

July 29, 2015  Using a hybrid silica sol-gel material and self-assembled monolayers of a common fatty acid, researchers have developed a new capacitor dielectric material that provides an ... read more

July 31, 2015  As the demand grows for ever smaller, smarter electronics, so does the demand for understanding materials’ behavior at ever smaller scales. Physicists are building a unique ... read more

July 31, 2015  Nanoscale worlds sometimes resemble macroscale roller-coaster style hills, placed at the tip of a series of hexagons. Surprisingly, these nanohills stem from the self-organization of particles -- the ... read more

July 31, 2015  Precise targeting biological molecules, such as cancer cells, for treatment is a challenge, due to their sheer size. Now, scientists have proposed an advanced solution that can potentially be applied ... read more

July 30, 2015  The behavior of fruit flies, which are commonly used in laboratory experiments, is altered by electric fields, new research shows. The research indicates that the wings of the insects are disturbed ... read more

June 25, 2014  A modest increase in the number of skilled midwives in the world’s poorest nations could save the lives of a substantial number of women and their babies, according to new analyses. Maternal ... read more

Feb. 4, 2014  A recent prospective study comparing conventional IVF with a novel simplified laboratory method of culturing embryos suggested that fertilization and implantation rates were similar for the ... read more

Apr. 21, 2012  Voluntary industry reductions in salt content and taxation on products containing salt in 19 developing countries could reduce the number of deaths each year from cardiovascular disease by 2-3 ... read more

Mar. 4, 2011  A new, rapid blood test that could lead to early diagnosis and potentially save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people stricken with fungal meningitis, a leading cause of AIDS-related deaths in ... read more